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Article AEROLITES. Page 1 of 1
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Aerolites.
AEROLITES .
THE following are the facts known with reference to meteoric stones . They are similar in external appearance , and almost identical in chemical composition . They invariably contain metallic iron and nickel , which , as yet , has never been discovered among the productions of our earth . Some are entire masses of iron ; and so much do metallic substances preponderate in them that meteoric iron is their most appropriate name . They all exhibit marks of recent fusion , and are intensely
hot when examined immediately after their fall . Few years elapse without some instances of their descent , but many must escape notice , falling into the sea , or in uninhabited districts of the earth . Some , too , never reach the earth at all , but shoot as brilliant lights across the atmosphere , and form what are vulgarly called the shooting stars , so commonly observed on our winter nights . Their mass is sometimes very large . One which passed by us onward , in space , was estimated to be
equal to Ceres , whose supposed diameter is about seventy-five miles ; and another , which passed within twenty-five miles of the earth ' s surface , and cast down a fragment upon it , was calculated to weigh 600 , 000 tons . The month of November has recently become celebrated for exhibiting the grand and astonishing spectacle of stars proceeding in a copious shower from a particular point in the heavens , like streams from an artificial fountain . The occurrence is , perhaps , not so modern as the observation of it , as it takes place in the night , commencing about midnight , reaching its maximum between three and four o ' clock , and finishing by sunrise . Indeed , in 1799 , on the nights of the 11 th and 12 th of
November , the Moravian brethren in Greenland witnessed the same splendid scene , the illumination of the sky as with an incessant play of rockets , which was observed as far south as Cumana , and east , as Germany . The phenomenon was again noticed in the November of 1831 ; and in subsequent years at the same period it has appeared , and been visible from a region of the earth extending from the far west of America eastward to the Red Sea . The most awful display was on the night of November 13 th 1833 from four to six
, , o ' clock , when globules of fire apparently radiated from a point in the constellation of Leo , and were almost as numerous as the flakes in a shower of snow . The attention of astronomers has been intently fixed upon this event . It is very likely that the November meteors , the meteoric stones , and the shooting stars of all ages , have one and the same ori gin . The most probable opinion isthat they are small bodies revolving round the sunwhich
, opaque , , coming into contoct with our atmosphere , are ignited by it , some being dissipated , and others of denser material falling to the earth , lt bas been calculated that a body moving through our atmosphere with a velocity of a mile a second , which is l-20 th that of the atmosphere itself in space , would elicit a heat equal to 30 , 000 ° of Fahrenheit ; a heat higher than that of the fiercest artificial furnace that ever glowed . What these bodies themselves are—whether the fragments of a destroying
lanetp or portions of a nebulous mass which part company with it owing to the earth's attraction , one of its extremities projecting towards that part of the orbit through which the earth passes in November—there are points of complete speculation . —Milner ' s Astronomy and Scripture .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Aerolites.
AEROLITES .
THE following are the facts known with reference to meteoric stones . They are similar in external appearance , and almost identical in chemical composition . They invariably contain metallic iron and nickel , which , as yet , has never been discovered among the productions of our earth . Some are entire masses of iron ; and so much do metallic substances preponderate in them that meteoric iron is their most appropriate name . They all exhibit marks of recent fusion , and are intensely
hot when examined immediately after their fall . Few years elapse without some instances of their descent , but many must escape notice , falling into the sea , or in uninhabited districts of the earth . Some , too , never reach the earth at all , but shoot as brilliant lights across the atmosphere , and form what are vulgarly called the shooting stars , so commonly observed on our winter nights . Their mass is sometimes very large . One which passed by us onward , in space , was estimated to be
equal to Ceres , whose supposed diameter is about seventy-five miles ; and another , which passed within twenty-five miles of the earth ' s surface , and cast down a fragment upon it , was calculated to weigh 600 , 000 tons . The month of November has recently become celebrated for exhibiting the grand and astonishing spectacle of stars proceeding in a copious shower from a particular point in the heavens , like streams from an artificial fountain . The occurrence is , perhaps , not so modern as the observation of it , as it takes place in the night , commencing about midnight , reaching its maximum between three and four o ' clock , and finishing by sunrise . Indeed , in 1799 , on the nights of the 11 th and 12 th of
November , the Moravian brethren in Greenland witnessed the same splendid scene , the illumination of the sky as with an incessant play of rockets , which was observed as far south as Cumana , and east , as Germany . The phenomenon was again noticed in the November of 1831 ; and in subsequent years at the same period it has appeared , and been visible from a region of the earth extending from the far west of America eastward to the Red Sea . The most awful display was on the night of November 13 th 1833 from four to six
, , o ' clock , when globules of fire apparently radiated from a point in the constellation of Leo , and were almost as numerous as the flakes in a shower of snow . The attention of astronomers has been intently fixed upon this event . It is very likely that the November meteors , the meteoric stones , and the shooting stars of all ages , have one and the same ori gin . The most probable opinion isthat they are small bodies revolving round the sunwhich
, opaque , , coming into contoct with our atmosphere , are ignited by it , some being dissipated , and others of denser material falling to the earth , lt bas been calculated that a body moving through our atmosphere with a velocity of a mile a second , which is l-20 th that of the atmosphere itself in space , would elicit a heat equal to 30 , 000 ° of Fahrenheit ; a heat higher than that of the fiercest artificial furnace that ever glowed . What these bodies themselves are—whether the fragments of a destroying
lanetp or portions of a nebulous mass which part company with it owing to the earth's attraction , one of its extremities projecting towards that part of the orbit through which the earth passes in November—there are points of complete speculation . —Milner ' s Astronomy and Scripture .